Salon.com: Have you noticed the silence, the casual indifference, of the Obama administration since the Egyptian army shoved President Mohamed Morsi from office in a military coup that gets bloodier by the day? Well, that is what you are supposed to notice.
Barack Obama goes golfing as Cairo descends into violence. Secretary of State John Kerry goes sailing in Nantucket. Neither has anything of importance to say about the events in Egypt — the chaos engulfing the nation. We’re just bystanders, and those poor Egyptians — we hope they can sort themselves out.
These guys play a pretty fair hand a lot of the time, but they have overplayed this one. Anyone who thinks the U.S. is not complicit up to its eyebrows in the Egyptian army’s unlawful coup needs a refresher in our history.
It is now common currency to say that Morsi, who served just a year after he was legitimately elected in June 2012, failed some kind of democracy test. He did no such thing. There was a test, but the failure belongs to Washington. It professes to like democracies all over the planet, but it cannot yet abide one that may not reflect America’s will.
Categories: Americas
The democratization of Middle Eatern/Muslim counties(save Saudi Arabia) was an aggressive part of George W. Bush’s agenda that trickled down to Obama Administation.
Because of the lack of an election mechanism in most the Muslim states in the Middle Eastern, an impression was created that’s how Islam, perhaps,dictated the affairs of governance.
Many ctiritcs, perhaps, do not realize that Islam provids a middle course between democracy and autocracy – the extemes o leadership.
The agitation and demonstration-based efforts to bring down governmens that did not hold elections for decades or tend to wait till the death of leader did not fit with idea of democracy.
In the wake of the Epytian agitation it the rise of Muslim Brotherhod was becoming clear which eventually took over the polital power.
What the Obama Administration shold have done?
How much fueling and what part we Americans played directly of indirectly in the Egyptiian revolt remain to be seen.
Instead of agitation or revolt, there should have meetings of all Middle esatern leaders to discuss a plan of transit to democary via an elecvtion process as we have in US.
How About Saudi Arabia
One might argue that their situaion similar to the Briish Monarchy. Well that does not hold water ny more because Britain has an elvction process to a Prime Minister every so may years which Saudis do not have or is not ptovided for in their Constitution.
We cannot use undemocractic pocesse or means to intall democracy.
Long road to demoracy
Middle East has a long road to true democracy and a lot of cation is needed to change the political thinking there that seem to be stuck in the cobweb of democracy and Islamic form of government that theWest is so unclear about.
I cannot believe that George Bush wanted to really bring ‘democracy’ to the Middle East. As you correctly point out some of his old friends like Saudi Arabia would have been ‘excluded’. If ‘democracy’ was such a wonderful thing, why not bring to the ‘best friend’? As you correctly point out one cannot bring ‘democracy’ ‘on the barrel of the gun’. I am sure even old George knew that actually.